Meat Loaf: “They should've put me in a padded cell, I was a lunatic"

Burnt out by endlessly touring Bat Out Of Hell, the last thing Meat Loaf wanted to do was record a follow-up – so his second project with Jim Steinman nearly severed their connection forever

Meat Loaf's Dead Ringer has been voted number 43 in our countdown of the 100 Greatest Albums Of The 1980s. Read the full list here.

Dead Ringer was not supposed to have been Meat Loaf’s second album. That was supposed to have been Renegade Angel, the record that Jim Steinman conceived and wrote as the planned follow-up to Bat Out Of Hell. But then, for the longest time, it seemed no one had wanted a Meat Loaf-Steinman record full-stop.